Watchtower Of The West: Gate Of The Mighty Dead

“Darkness is a path, a secret swirling river, where the lidded eye opens to ancient dreams.
The dusk is a door, a coffin of stone, which I have dressed my soul in moldered flesh to enter.
Cloaked in decay, the world falls into the gloom of barren earth and my shadow drowns the
Temple behind me. Iet I am not fallen, but hidden. I am flame amid waters of disturbance
And desolation. Mransgressing, not sinking. marching across night,
Through the depths of doom and decadence, I am star masked with skin and scalps of gods.
A riddled truth sweeping between the shores of ghosts' hollow cries.
Concealing lock upon lock within the old serpent's chambers with thunderbolt words,
I am turning and becoming in dying, an endless dawn unseen by day.”

I face the west and in adoration I hail the setting sun
That falls upon the ramparts of the watchtower of death and dreams
To enter verily into the death's mansion and in might hermitage illumine
The autumnal thorn-path towards midnight
The labyrinth of crimson dusk
To pass through the entrance of the underworld
And be changed by ordeal

Praise thee, o dying sun!
Praise thee, o fallen one!
Hoary as the earthen grave
To which you have come

Wise in your ancient aspect
As thy elder epithet
By relinquishing unto death.
Another ingress beget
Imperator at the watchtower
Of death and of dreams
By the western road towards great midnight
The fallen star gleams!

Burnishing the skies with crimson and gold
Turning lead black as thy burning wings doth unfold
Enter the earth, enter the grave
And hearken now forth towards ancestors mighty and brave
Infernal lampadiphor
Psychopomp self-slain
With hell-mouth billows
Kindle the forge-fires of cain
And speak now his name!
And speak now his name!
Noctifer rise!
From the felled corpse self-slain!
In congress at crossed roads
A new form obtained
In casket and tomb
The sepulchral king now ordained
Go forth now as death's wayfarer
Upon the crooked road of bane
Tread the thorn-path towards great midnight
To enter death's fane!